Day: September 27, 2015

Newly disclosed emails from Hillary Clinton to then CENTCOM chief David Petraeus show that the former secretary of state was using a private server earlier than she had previously said.

The new set of emails, from January to February 2009, was turned over to the State Department by the Department of Defense, State Department spokesman John Kirby told ABC News, confirming a story originally reported by The Associated Press.

The State Department said its record of Clinton emails begins on March 18, 2009. Over the nearly two months she was in office before that, Clinton has said she used a Blackberry email account that she can no longer access.

The discovery appears to contradict Clinton’s sworn statement that she had turned over all the email from her private server to the State Department.

Clinton’s team did not respond to a request from ABC News for comment.

The revelation came the same day the State Department said it had found previously undisclosed emails related to the Benghazi terror attack on Clinton’s private email account.

In February, the Department turned over 296 emails relating to Benghazi to the House Select Committee investigation the attack, claiming at the time that they were the only emails relevant to the committee’s request.

The discovery Friday of a handful of new emails, first reported by the Daily Beast, contradicted that claim.

A senior State Department official told ABC News on Friday that it missed these emails the first time around because of the cumbersome nature of discovery process. Clinton turned over 55,000 printed pages of documents that had to be search by hand, which prevented researchers from conducting electronic keyword searches, according to this official. The new emails were discovered only after the documents had been scanned and searched on a computer.

The Shin Bet and police forces arrested four Palestinian teens (16-19) suspected of playing a role in the stone-throwing attack on Rosh Hashanah that killed Israeli Alexander Levlovich, it was released for publication Saturday night.

Mahmoud Abed Rabbo Dawiyat, Mohammed Salah Mohammed Abu Keif, Waled Fares Mustafa Atrash and another minor who’s details are under gag order, are from the Sur Bahar suburb of East Jerusalem and have Israeli identification cards.

Three of the four suspects. (Photo: Shin Bet Spokesperson)

Levlovich was killed on the eve of the Jewish New Year on his way home from dinner with family. The four Palestinians are accused of throwing stones at his vehicle, causing him to lose control and crash into a telephone pole.

During questioning, the four said they went out that evening with purpose, prepared to throw rocks at passing vehicles specifically on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.

Alexander Levlolich and his wrecked vehicle at the scene of the attack. (Photo: Arik Abulof, Jerusalem Fire and Rescue)

Dawiyat, whom the Shin Bet said admitted to throwing the stones, added that he arrived at the location of the attack wearing a Hamas flag which he had received while participating in a rally in Umm al-Fahm for the al-Aqsa Mosque before the attack.

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It’s time for the next, and perhaps final, chapter of the market for e-book subscriptions.Oyster, the startup that helped kickstart the sexy-sounding (at least in the world of literature) idea of a “Netflix for e-books” two years ago and received plenty of press and $17 million in funding for it, announced this week that it’s shutting down in the next few months.The startup did not explain its reasoning for shutting down, but multiple people familiar with the situation told Mashable that Google has snatched up the majority of Oyster’s team, including its founders, in an acquisition. Google confirmed to Mashable that a portion of the Oyster team will take over running Google Play Books.

Re/code was first to report Google’s acqui-hiring part of Oyster’s team.

Oyster’s fate highlights the difficulty of building a standalone business focused on digital book subscriptions (and e-books more generally) against much larger technology and publishing businesses.

The three leading startups — Oyster, Scribd and Entitle — initially touted the potential for businesses in the e-book subscription market to one day rival the likes of billion-dollar companies like Netflix and Spotify. Now two of those three businesses are dead.

Entitle (formerly eReatah) quietly shut down this summer. Oyster is expected to help Google’s books team in New York compete with Apple and Amazon by improving design and curation, but Google is not yet committing to pursuing the e-book subscription option, according to people familiar with the matter. Google declined to comment on future product plans.

“It’s proof that a standalone subscription offering for general e-books, as opposed to something in a market niche, can’t work,” says Mike Shatzkin, a book publishing consultant and founder of The Idea Logical Company.

Scribd, the last of the three subscription startups still standing, had established itself as a document sharing service for six years before investing in e-book subscriptions. Amazon unveiled an e-book subscription option of its own last year, but it’s just part of a suite of book services for the $250 billion technology giant.

Some familiar with Oyster’s situation, who were not authorized to speak about the deal on the record, suggested that Google’s acquisition signals this is becoming a market for the bigger players rather than the startups. Industry watchers we spoke with also noted that businesses like Amazon, Apple and Google, with greater financial resources larger existing audiences, who have the potential to make good on the promise of reading unlimited digital books each month.

Just because Google has the potential to go this route doesn’t mean it will be worth the effort, even with Oyster’s team under its roof.

“The book business is beneath a rounding error,” says Shatzkin. “There are people in Google who worry about the book business, but there’s nobody at the top of Google who could justify spending more than a couple of minutes a month worrying about the book business.”

If that’s true, the Oyster deal may not represent a new page for the concept of e-book subscriptions so much as the final word.

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FILE – In this April 9, 2014, file photo, Alex Hribal is escorted to a district magistrate to be arraigned in Export, Pa. Hribal, charged with stabbing 20 fellow students and a security guard at a Pennsylvania high school, must move from a juvenile detention center to the county jail when he turns 18, Westmoreland County Judge Christopher Feliciani ruled Thursday, Sept. 24, 2015. Hribal is charged as an adult in the April 2014 rampage. A hearing to determine whether the case will be moved to juvenile court won’t resume until November, but Hribal turns 18 on Oct. 1.

GREENSBURG, PA. — A teen charged with stabbing 20 fellow students and a security guard at his high school must move from a juvenile detention center to the county jail when he turns 18, a judge ruled Thursday.

The decision by Westmoreland County Judge Christopher Feliciani came over the objections of the attorney for Alex Hribal, of Murrysville. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review first reported the ruling.

Hribal is charged as an adult in the April 2014 rampage at Franklin Regional High School. A hearing to determine whether the case will be moved to juvenile court won’t resume until November, but Hribal turns 18 on Oct. 1.

Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey had argued that “real and irreversible harm” could be done to Hribal’s mental health status if the slightly built boy is moved to the adult facility.

Thomassey acknowledges Hribal committed the attack using two 8-inch kitchen knives he brought from home that morning, but he contends Hribal was seriously mentally ill. The defense attorney still hopes to convince Feliciani that Hribal’s case belongs in juvenile court where, Thomassey contends, the boy can receive more suitable mental health treatment and other rehabilitation than he will in the adult system.

Hribal faces potentially decades in prison if he’s convicted as an adult of 20 counts each of attempted homicide and aggravated assault, as well as a school weapons violation. But if he’s moved to juvenile court, Hribal’s incarceration would end when he’s 21.

District Attorney John Peck has argued that the crimes are too serious to allow for that and that Hribal can receive help in the state prison system for whatever mental issues he may have. At Thursday’s hearing, Peck also argued that there’s no exception in the law that would let Hribal remain in the juvenile detention center after he’s 18, and the judge agreed.

Thomassey asked the judge to allow Hribal to post bond once he’s moved to the jail, but the judge said that’s “not appropriate.”

“He’s charged, at this point, as an adult,” the judge said. “They’re serious charges.”

Pittsburgh will travel to St. Louis for a Week 3 kickoff against the Rams in the Edward Jones Dome.

LAST MEETING:Steelers 27, Rams 0, Dec. 24, 2011, Heinz Field. RB John Clay, RB Rashard Mendenhall and RB Isaac Redman all rushed for touchdowns, the first time since the 2008 season that three different Steelers rushed for a touchdown in the same game. The defense registered three sacks, forced seven punts and allowed a season-low 68 net passing yards while posting the Steelers’ 29th shutout since 1960. Charlie Batch filled in at QB for Ben Roethlisberger and threw for 208 yards.

LAST WEEK: The Steelers improved to 1-1 with a 43-18 thumping of the 49ers at Heinz Field. The Rams fell to 1-1 with a 24-10 loss to the Redskins at FedEx Field.

WHEN THE RAMS HAVE THE BALL: Job One for the Steelers, as always, will be to stop the run. But this time that’s a task that will include identifying and dealing with WR Tavon Austin. Although he’s carried just eight times in two games, Austin leads St. Louis with 57 yards rushing (one TD). The Rams will deploy their most dynamic play-maker wide left or right, in the slot, in bunch formations and in the backfield, and they’ll motion Austin into and out of the backfield in an effort to create favorable matchups and get him the ball in open spaces. He can fly and he can influence plays even as a decoy on fake-wide receiver sweeps, as he did on what became a 40-yard touchdown pass at Washington.

QB Nick Foles has 48 career touchdown passes and 17 career interceptions (2-0 this season). Although not a runner, Foles has decent pocket mobility and will even roll out and throw on the run on occasion. He’s an intelligent, accurate passer but when he’s harassed, as he was almost constantly by Washington, he’s much less effective. Foles was hurried 14 times on 32 attempts by the Redskins. He threw for 297 yards and led a 12-play, 84-yard drive that produced the tying touchdown in the final minute of regulation in St. Louis’ season-opening overtime win over Seattle.

TE Jared Cook is a big target and a prominent component of the two-tight ends personnel group the Rams favor. He’s not Rob Gronkowski (New England) but he’s better than Vernon Davis (San Francisco) in the passing game. St. Louis starts a pair of rookies on the offensive line (LG Jamon Brown and RT Rob Havenstein) and has four players in spots they weren’t in a year ago (LT Greg Robinson played guard last year as a rookie and C Tim Barnes is a fourth-year pro and a first-year starter). The Rams have yet to get much of anything significant established with consistency on the ground (39-143-3.7 in two games). They got off to an agonizingly slow start at Washington (six punts, 72 total net yards in the first two quarters) and became the first team to be shut out in a first half by the Redskins since Oct. 2, 2011 (when it happened to the Rams).

WHEN THE STEELERS HAVE THE BALL: The ability to deal with a Front Four that goes seven deep will go a long way toward dictating whether the visitors succeed or fail. DTs Aaron Donald (two-and-a-half sacks) and Michael Brockers and DEs Robert Quinn (two) and Chris Long (one) are all former No. 1 picks, as is reserve DT Nick Fairley (Detroit, 2011). They’re a handful, but the Washington offensive line nonetheless handled the strength of the St. Louis defense. The Redskins consistently got to the edge on the way to rushing for 182 yards and two TDs and averaging 4.9 yards per carry.

St. Louis plays its DBs four, five and six at a time and for the most part plays off the line of scrimmage. The Rams rely on zones to mask an absence of one-on-one coverage skills. Quinn (13) and LB Alec Ogletree (10) have excelled at forcing fumbles since 2013 and CB Janoris Jenkins has six TDs since 2012. St. Louis will blitz some but mostly it counts on the defensive linemen to get home in a hurry. Opposing QBs have been sacked a combined eight times through two games, but they’ve also completed 55 of 68 passes (80.9 percent) for two touchdowns and one interception.

The Rams crowded the line on running downs against the Redskins at times and weren’t opposed to run-blitzes. But they gradually wore out against a Washington offense that stopped short of going no-huddle but still pushed the tempo by getting plays in quickly, getting plays off quickly and getting the ball out quickly. After having closed from 17-0 down at halftime to within 17-10 in the third quarter, the Rams allowed a 12-play, 77-yard drive in 6:49 after giving up possession with 9:27 remaining at Washington.

SPECIAL-TEAMS HEADLINERS:K Greg “The Leg” Zuerlein hit a 52-yard field goal against the Redskins and has made 14 from 50-plus in his career. RB Benny Cunningham was fifth in the NFL in kickoff return average in 2014 (27.5 yards). Austin had a 75-yard punt return for a TD against Seattle (his third career TD on a punt return) and is the only player in NFL history with a punt return of at least 75 yards in each of his first three seasons. Steelers KJosh Scobee missed a PAT against San Francisco after missing field goal attempts of 44 and 46 yards in the season opener against New England.

THE X-FACTOR: The Steelers are averaging 458.5 yards and 32 points per game. And now they get RB Le’Veon Bell back from his two-game suspension. What will Bell’s addition mean to an offense that seemingly found its stride against the 49ers?

THEY SAID IT:“It’s really exciting getting him back. Honestly, I feel like Le’Veon’s the best running back in the NFL. When we’re getting pieces back to our team and an offense that’s already unstoppable and you’re just adding another great player to it, might as well just take out the popcorn and get ready for the show. Those guys are going to do some great things.” _ Steelers LB Ryan Shazier on Bell’s return.

The US teenager, whose activism and online success had made him a youth outreach chairman for Republican Ted Cruz, had been trading messages with a reporter for Glenn Beck’s news site, The Blaze.

Oliver Darcy, a reporter for the site, was asking Pearson to prove – as he had claimed, to great viral attention – that US President Barack Obama had truly blocked him on Twitter. In lieu of proof, Pearson was calling for help.

“In a few minutes, @oliverdarcy is going to release a hit article on me and I’m going to take it,” Pearson wrote..”Because here’s what the PR folks are saying: say you lied and apologise to avoid backlash. But, instead, I choose to stand by my word. While the article will be incriminating, all we have in politics is our word and I stand by it. Nevertheless, I’m disappointed in @theblaze.”

It was one of the more confusing moments in a story born to confuse. Coreco JaQuan Pearson’s profile had been growing well before the Twitter story, thanks to his precocious and silver-tongued video denunciations of the president.

The most successful had come just this month, when Pearson locked his eyes on a webcam and asked – rhetorically – why a president who so blatantly disrespected police officers had so quickly invited Texas teenager Ahmed Mohamed to the White House, after being disciplined for bringing to school a homemade clock that administrators mistook for a bomb.

“Mr President, when cops are being gunned down, you don’t invite their family to the White House,” Pearson said. “You never did. But when a Muslim kid builds a clock? Well, come on by.”

The video was viewed nearly two million times and inspired dozens of profiles, including one in The Washington Post.

People trying to understand the Pearson phenomenon got it quickly. Wunderkinds arise on the right with some frequency. In 2009, it was 13-year old Jonathan Krohn – also a Georgian – giving a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference and becoming a quasi-celebrity.

In 2013 it was Benji Backer, a 16-year old Wisconsinite whose story of high school administrators suppressing his political views got him onstage at CPAC and other conferences.

Neither Krohn nor Backer took to stardom. By 2012, Krohn was renouncing his old views in a series of interviews, and taking on a new life as a journalist. Backer’s exit was quicker: By 2015, he worried that a political life was making him “selfish.”

Pearson entered the political life with gusto, and no qualms. His first video, in February, was inspired by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ranting to a room of conservative donors (and a pre-presidential bid Scott Walker) that President Obama did not love America.

“I don’t want to be politically correct,” said Pearson. “I don’t care about being politically correct at this point. President Obama: You don’t love America. If you loved America, you would call ISIS what it is… if you loved America, President Obama, you wouldn’t try to take away what hard-working Americans have worked for their entire lives.”

That video scored two million views, success Pearson wouldn’t achieve on YouTube again until this month. But it was enough. By May, Pearson had a five-minute interview with Cruz that teed up the candidate’s favourite talking points.

“Have we not maintained our promise to the American people to repeal Obamacare?” Pearson asked.

“CJ,” said Cruz, “you’re exactly right.”

Pearson became a fervent Cruz supporter; in September, the Cruz campaign announced his new role as the head of “Teens for Ted,” and Pearson added a TedCruz.org email address to his Twitter profile. Simply by speaking his mind, Pearson had become a conservative star.

There was one catch. Pearson had done more than speak. He’d left the impression that his speech was being silenced. In March, after the Giuliani video went viral, Pearson’s Facebook account was closed.

He was 12 years old when he shot the video, and as Facebook told reporters, no one could have an account until age 13. Pearson was not having it.

He told a local Fox News affiliate that the First Amendment was “obviously not a big concern to the powers that be at Facebook.”

He told national Fox News that “time and time again, Facebook has shut down many conservative accounts after they decide to speak up.”

No one had really been denied access to Pearson’s speech, and he quickly solved the age problem by setting up a Facebook fan page and turning 13.

But just four months later, Pearson announced that he would “take a break from politics and commentary.” The reason was a complicated and quickly terminated fight with an obscure Twitter account with only (as of right now) 33 followers and no public profile.

Jon Richards, a blogger for Georgia’s PeachPundit, noticed that the most toxic aspect of the fight came from an account that egged it on with a racial slur. That account was easily traced back to Pearson.

Nothing came of either story, though, and Pearson started this week with more visibility than ever.

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee tweeted that he’d “love to discuss” a speaking role for Pearson. Business Insider upgraded him from a rising star to a “leading 13-year old pundit.” And then, Pearson tweeted what he claimed was a screenshot of @BarackObama blocking his account.

At first, no one questioned this. Twitchy, the conservative site that aggregates Twitter wars, reported that the White House was “afraid of a 13-year-old boy.”

The Daily Caller matter-of-factly reported that Pearson had been blocked, as did Breitbart, as did other conservative news sites. White House assistant press secretary Frank Benenati swiftly tweeted that Pearson was wrong, and that “nobody is or has ever been blocked from the @POTUS twitter account.”

That sent skeptics looking for cases where the account had blocked hostile accounts, and it inspired a new video from Pearson – which would be viewed half a million times – denouncing the White House for lying about him.

“They lied about Benghazi,” he said, in high dudgeon. “They lied about the IRS. They lie about every issue of importance to the American people.”

But other online sleuths could tell that something was off. First, a subsequent Pearson tweet revealed that he was still following @BarackObama.

Second, there was no timestamp or external information on the tweet, and the kerning on the standard text “learn more” was skewed. Coincidentally, a popular parody account had previously tweeted an identical image (now deleted) of an Obama “blocking,” with the same kerning.

Oliver Darcy, a reporter for the Blaze, dug into all of this and contacted Pearson. The wunderkind initially told him that he’d taken the shot on a Droid tablet.

In the video, Pearson had claimed that he saw the blocking when he “got home,” not specifying what device he’d used.

As more questions swirled online, Pearson warned his fans that the “incriminating” piece was coming, but never said publicly whether it could be trusted.

Then, two hours after Darcy’s piece went online, Pearson issued a fresh Facebook statement. “I’m not responding to fraudulent attacks on my character by the left nor RINOs,” Pearson wrote.

“My friend sent me the screenshot, since I accessed my account using his phone. I saw it with my own eyes. Time to move on.”

Benji Backer watched the events unfold with disgust. After a short conversation, he pointed to the tweetstorm he’d written after reading the Blaze piece, about how “young conservatives have made the movement look foolish.” He wasn’t a part of that, but he knew Pearson was headed for a fall.

“I tried to give CJ advice,” Backer wrote.

“And I know he’s going to lash out at me now. But we used to work together. I told him he had promise but that he had to keep it in perspective, truth [sic] and stay humble. Stardom can ruin those things and it did for him. CJ & I (when I was still in politics) were going to work on some things.

“But he didn’t like advice and he wanted ‘his brand’ to grow instead. People, including myself, tried to help CJ. I really thought he could do great things. But he wasn’t willing to listen. Most of all, CJ lied to me. Numerous times. And many people I know and love. That’s when I knew there was a problem.”

Reached on Twitter and at his campaign email account, Pearson did not respond to questions. According to Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler, CJ Pearson remains part of the campaign.

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Cuba’s President Raul Castro, speaking at the United Nations for the first time, on Saturday hailed renewed diplomatic ties with the United States as “major progress” but slammed a U.S. trade embargo as the top obstacle to Cuba’s economic development.

Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama in December announced a detente following more than half a century of animosity between the former Cold War foes that culminated in the restoration of diplomatic relations on July 20.

Although Obama has taken steps to ease trade and travel restrictions, only the U.S. Congress can lift the full embargo and that is not viewed as likely at the moment.

The embargo is “the main obstacle to our country’s economic development, while affecting other nations due to its extraterritorial scope, and hurting the interests of American citizens and companies,” Castro told a U.N. summit of world leaders on sustainable development.

“Such policy is rejected by 188 United Nations members states that demand its removal,” he said, referring to an annual U.N. General Assembly resolution that has condemned the U.S. embargo for more than two decades.

Cuba estimates the embargo has caused $121 billion in damage to its economy. It has launched a campaign for the General Assembly to again adopt the resolution calling for the embargo to be lifted.

U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Washington is considering abstaining from the U.N. vote on the resolution, provided the draft text is amended from previous years to tone down the criticism of the United States.

Adoption of the resolution has become an annual ritual. The United States and Israel have always voted against the declaration. While the General Assembly’s vote is nonbinding and symbolic, it has served to highlight U.S. isolation regarding Havana.

Castro is due to address the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Monday for the first time as president. Castro, 84, took over from his ailing brother, Fidel, provisionally in 2006 and definitively in 2008.